Crash, Bang, Boom

In the middle of the night, 3:30 a.m. to be exact, we arose to a clatter.
It sounded like a loud boom and glass breaking. I immediately thought someone was breaking in and grabbed the phone to dial 911. My husband, fearing for the safety of one of the children, jumped up to investigate.
The picture hanging above our couch had fallen down on top of the Joy tree and sent it tumbling down. The picture wire in back had come loose and luckily as it fell, it hit the ground in such a way that the glass didn't break. Well more like, unfortunately, the joy tree cushioned it's fall.
Relatively minor damage, though.
The damage was limited to four ornaments. Two are easy fixes. The other two are going to be harder to glue. All in all the damage is minor compared to what could have been.
And it IS a material possession.
I remember when I was growing up, my mom telling me after I broke a dish, "We love people, not things."

I'm repeating that to myself as I pick up the ornaments.
It is true.
But I love a person who is represented by this thing.

Time after Time

(Joy, 1 year old)
2 Years.
In some ways the longest two years of my life. In some ways the shortest.
How can it be that she's been gone so long? and yet so short a time?
This concept of time is confusing. My life has been on pause since that day but it also hasn't paused. The kids have grown up. I've had a baby. Time has moved on. We have always told each one of our kids as they were babies, "Don't grow up. Stay just the age you are. I wish we could push pause." But we don't really mean it. We have one child that is eternally 2 years and 3 months. We don't really want another that doesn't grow up.
2 Years.
You know what? We are doing good. The baby has helped us heal. I love seeing the kids with delighted faces as they get her to laugh or they feed her or play. They feel Joy through her as they enjoy having a baby sister.
Time really does heal. But time is also a stealer of memories. As time passes, we forget. We don't want to but we do.
It's a balance of moving forward and not forgetting.
I still think about Joy every day. I hope I always do.
I don't want to forget.
I just want to keep on loving and living.

Joy's Toy's

This year we donated Joy's Toy's to a store where less fortunate families can pick Christmas gifts. It is sponsored by several charities and it is local. We really enjoyed picking out her gifts. It's really hard to think about her getting older. We had to get Dora slippers. She may have grown out of her Dora phase by now, but I don't think WE ever will.

Have a Merry Christmas and thanks to all those who donated toys in honor of Joy. We love it when she is remembered.

Grief is OK-even for Mormons

I read this article today

The author talks about how people sometimes dismiss the loss of our loved ones because our religion teaches that we will see them again. I loved that he validates our grief and uses President Hinckley as an example.
Great article.

Time for the Joy Tree

We actually put it up on her birthday this year which was a really fun thing for us to do as a family.
My mother-in-law made this really cute tree skirt.


Here are some of my new favorite ornaments this year:





I'm always on the lookout for new unique joy ornaments. It brings my heart a little joy this time of year.

Celebrating with Traditions

Now that we are in our second year without Joy, the activities we do around her special days have become traditions. We started her birthday party off by going bowling. The kids love to do this and it is fun to see them talk smack about who's going to win. That honor went to daughter #2 this year. Let's just say the adults didn't have the bumpers up.
We then headed to the cemetery for our balloon launch. Everybody got to write a message to Joy on a balloon and send it to her in heaven.

We sang her favorite songs.

Then we got to decorate Dora cupcakes and sing her Happy Birthday.

It was a very beautiful day.

4 Years Ago

4 years ago, today, I was induced early so I could fly to my baby brother's wedding. I wanted her to be two weeks old when we made the airplane ride.
At my 10 week ultrasound, we saw a suspicious lump on the baby's head. My doctor assured me that he wasn't worried and it was probably her fist (which it was) but he wanted us to go to San Francisco for a super ultrasound to check it out. I was assigned a genetic counselor and we had to wait a few weeks to get there. That was a scary time for me. I felt peace though, knowing we would accept whatever challenge came with this baby in her lifetime. We went there and the technician told us that our baby was perfect. We were relieved and so excited that #4 would have a brother. She couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl yet, but I knew in my heart it was a boy. We couldn't decide on a name. As we were driving to the hospital, we started discussing names. We just couldn't agree and then we kind of looked at each other and said, "What if it's a girl?" I had had a dream the night before where a girl baby reached her little fingers out of my womb to hold my hand. My husband said, "I dreamed about a girl baby too." We just looked at each other and laughed.
Because of my rapid labor with #4 (and negligant nurse who left me for an hour and went to smoke) my doctor missed his birth.
My doctor was adamant that he would not miss the birth and convinced my nurse that I needed to be checked often. This made my nurse too nervous to be generous with the pitocin, so my epidural-free labor was slow-going until I got to 5. This is when it gets super fast for me and I could tell it was time. I told the nurse to call the doctor but when she checked me I was still a 6. She called him but she kept saying, "I hope I didn't call him too early." I said, "The baby is coming out." And sure enough, out she slid at 2:21 p.m. just as the doctor walked in the room. My husband looked at me and said, "It's not a boy."
I admit that my heart sunk. I KNEW it was a boy. I KNEW it was #4's brother. I called my mom in tears. I was sad for #4 and I was sad for me.
But, this only lasted about 2.5 seconds because she was such a Joy from the beginning. Her name fit her from the moment she was born. We knew she was special and we knew we were lucky to have her in our family. My husband and I decided that she needed to come to earth at this time so she must have jumped ahead of #4's brother. (Hmmmm...still waiting...)
This was a special time for us. My husband's work gave paid paternity leave and we had him home for 6 weeks to care for us all. I often look back on that time as our little "Heaven on Earth".

It was so fun to send her birth announcement welcoming, "JOY TO THE WORLD."
I am grateful that we got to have Joy on earth with us for 817 days. She brought us a lot of Joy.

Happing Birthday Darling. We miss you. We know you are continuing to bring Joy to all around you.